The President Woodrow Wilson House is the home to which President and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson lived after leaving the White House in 1921. Open to the public since 1963, the Woodrow Wilson House is decorated much as it was when President Wilson lived here, replete with his art, photographs, furniture, gifts of state, and presidential memorabilia. The home contains more than 8,000 artifacts, including the dip pen with which President Wilson signed the Declaration of War for World War I, a mosaic presented by Pope Benedict XV, a gold timepiece presented by the first President of Czechoslovakia, and a “graph-o-scope” presented by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.

It is situated just off of “Embassy Row” in the historic Sheridan Kalorama neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C. and is a National Historic Landmark. This National Trust Historic Site was designed by Waddy B. Wood, a fashionable Washington architect in 1915. The home today is authentically furnished and gives a special glimpse into the private life of Woodrow Wilson while examining the impact of his consequential presidency on present and future generations.

Today, the Woodrow Wilson House is a historic site devoted to teaching about the early twentieth century and President Wilson’s legacy of ideas that remain relevant today. President Wilson changed the President’s role in the government, the government’s role in American society, and America’s role in the world. He imagined the world at peace and proposed the League of Nations to achieve that vision. He led the United States during World War I. However, the site also examines President Wilson’s shortcomings, especially relating to race and civil liberties. An honest appraisal of history helps us understand ourselves as a nation and a people.